Jet Set Radio Future

Jet Set Radio Future is the sequel to the beloved DC game, Jet Grind Radio. As part of the GG's, an inline skating gang, you grind around the futuristic Tokyo of 2024, tagging specific areas of the city. The original title featured some impressive graphics and started the cel-shaded game craze. It offered fast gameplay, an incredible soundtrack, and plenty of attitude. After spending twenty hours with this game, I can firmly say that JSRF carries on the tradition.

Features

Twenty-four playable characters

Thirty songs by Russel Simins, the Latch Brothers (featuring Mike D), and more

Four-player competitive battles at 60 fps

Huge environments to explore

Create your own graffiti

The StoryJet Set Radio Future starts out with the mysterious theft of a statue. This will lead you along a treacherous path throughout Tokyo, battling the evil Rokkaku group, lead by the megalomaniacal Gouji. Standing in your way of finding the stolen statue and defeating Gouji are the Rokkaku Police and a handful of rival gangs. Along the way you'll recruit new members for your gang and unlock new graffiti designs to spray on the walls of Tokyo's finest establishments. Battle Poison Jam, the Love Shockers, the Immortals, Zero Beat, and more as you take a ride down the twisting storyline of JSRF. Is one of the GG's not who they seem to be?

The storyline itself isn't too coherent. It jumps about in logic, but really, you won't be playing this game for the storyline anyway. Narrating you through this adventure is legendary DJ Professor K. He'll keep you up to date on the latest happenings, clue you in on where to go next, and offer commentary on your gameplay.

GameplaySmilebit streamlined JSRF to make the controls even more simple than before (if that's possible). The hope was to allow for a faster game, where speed and cool tricks were at a premium. And those changes, though risky, have paid off. In the original, each area had a time limit, forcing players to hurry up and not enjoy the scenery. You also had the police on your tail most of the time, making it difficult to do complex spray combos without the coppers bludgeoning you. The time limit is gone and so is the constant presence of the police. With no time limit and the police limited to certain areas (they trap you and you're stuck until they are taken care of), you'd think the game would actually slow down. After all, there's no impetus to hurry. Oddly enough, that "stand around and do nothing" attitude doesn't last past the first level.

Control JSRF has a simple control scheme. There's no button to press to grind, you simply need to land on a grindable area and you will automatically begin to grind. Graffiti is applied by pressing the right trigger, assuming you have some spray cans (which can be picked up along your route). There are five graffiti sizes, ranging from super-small to extra large. The larger the graffiti, the more you've got to spray. Tricks can be performed during grinds or when you get big air by pressing X or Y. You don't get to choose which tricks are performed, you just gotta hope they're cool. And most of them are.

For those who played the original, the removal of manual graffiti may disappoint you. In fact, it really bummed me out at first. However, having played through the game, I understand why that had to go. In the original, a lot of the grinds were done with you standing still. In Future, the majority of tags are done on the run. There's no way they could have you doing a tight corkscrew on a roller coaster track and stop mid-screw so you can spend twenty seconds doing graffiti. Yes, it's a big change, in a way, but in the end it's necessary to facilitate the level designs. You won't see this at first, actually, as the early levels play more like the original. Once you get a few areas into the game, you'll see what I mean.

Level design Truly, this is one of the most impressive level designs to ever grace a console. JSRF features large, multi-tiered levels packed with pedestrians. The early levels are similar to ones found in JGR, particularly the Shibuya Terminal. As you progress deeper into the game, new areas will open up that offer some nice variety. Each level also sports its own personality. If you say, "I love me some Kabagaoka Hill," I can immediately picture the environment. Of all the areas, the best has to be Sky-Dinosaurian Park, a prehistoric theme park where you grind along sky-high roller coaster tracks. That's something I've never done in a video game before--ride down a T-Rex's throat.

Because the graffiti has been simplified, your main challenge is finding your way to each tag spot. You'll also want to find every Graffiti Soul, as they open new graffiti designs. Getting to these areas can sometimes be a challenge. It's not so much the doing, it's more the figuring out how to do it in the first place. There are a few specific spots most people will likely get stuck on for a few minutes, trying to figure how to get that last Graffiti Soul.

Slow down, you move too fast, you've got to make the morning last JSRF is fast. Really fast. The sense of constant movement is present in most of the levels, with plenty of spots to grind and wall ride. This speed makes the occasional slowdown all the more noticeable. Oddly enough, the slowdowns don't usually occur in areas packed with people. Instead they often happen for a few seconds when you're skating all by your lonesome. The slowdown is most noticeable in the Garage after you've unlocked a few characters. This doesn't hurt the gameplay, because it doesn't happen often. Still, it keeps the game form being a perfectly smooth fast-moving beast.

Cops come and try to snatch my crops The Man just won't let you be. When you enter certain parts of levels, the Rokkaku Police will come in, trapping you into a confined area. You may have to run into them, knocking them down and then spraying them. The police will also come at you with tanks, choppers, and jets. All of these are easy to beat. Near the very end of the game, you'll actually get to deal with (or avoid) police and some assassins (the Golden Rhinos) throughout parts of a full level. I'm not sure why Smilebit chose to keep the cops from chasing you throughout the levels. It would have added more immediacy to the game. Which is important since there's no time limit. Or, at the very least, the cops should have been a much tougher challenge.

The cops are led by an insane inspector named Hayashi. He's a vampire-looking bloke who just isn't comical enough to belong in this game. Gouji, head of the Rokkaku Group, is perfectly sinister and well done. He's strong and menacing and seems the perfect fit as the evil, controlling, bad mofo.

When you're a Jet... The GG's aren't the only gang in town. The battle for territory will pit you against quite a few gangs who challenge you to a variety of events like City Rush (race around the city) and Flag (get more flags than your opponent). If you lose, you'll get another attempt. In fact, you'll get an infinite number of tries to beat a rival gang. But, again, you won't need many tries for any of these as the challenges are pretty easy.

Easy like a Sunday morning So, now I've mentioned that JSRF is easy twice in this review. And it is easy (now I've said it a third time). The levels can have some tricky spots, and some frustrating moments, but all of it is passable. What really hurts JSRF is the fact that the bosses, police, and rival gangs are laughably easy. In the final level, when you have to battle Gouji for Tokyo's freedom, you can literally stand in place, let him whack you and just hold down spray. It takes a bit of skill to actually get up to where Gouji is waiting for you, but once you are there, you can close your eyes and beat him. And he's the final boss. Balance is always a difficult thing for game developers to measure, and Smilebit made the game too easy for its own good. There is no difficulty setting, so you're stuck with easy mode.

After you're finished Once the credits roll, you've still got plenty to do. In each area is a hidden tape, which unlocks five Street Challenges. These challenges range from scoring a certain number of points to grinding off certain objects to achieving a specific trick total. When you beat a Street Challenge, a new Graffiti Soul will appear. Collect it for more swanky graffiti designs. Also, near the end of the game, all of the levels will be retagged in different areas. If you want to truly complete the game, you'll have to go back and spray all the new spots.

Graffiti design One of the cool things about JSRF is the ability to create your own tags. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a way to import graffiti you've created on your computer. So, you're stuck with using the control pad to do your design. Still, depending on your artistic talent, you can make some pretty amazing stuff.

Multiplayer There are five multiplayer modes, and up to four players can hop on the Xbox to see who's king of the grind. It's great to have this option and the multiplayer runs at a constant 60 fps. I've yet to see slowdown, even with four players on at once. Here are all of the multiplayer games available: City Rush Race one lap around an area. First to cross the goal wins. Ball Hog Race to the ball and snatch it up. With ball in hand, make one lap around the level. But watch out, rival players will crash into you, trying to steal the ball away. If you have a partner, you can pass the ball. Flag No, this is not capture the flag. You'll have a time limit or a limit on the number of flags that will appear. Get to the flag before your opponent. Once a flag is taken, another one will appear in a different area. The player with the most flags wins. Graffiti Wars Battle with an opponent, trying to get your tags on the walls of the level before they do. Best of all, you can tag over your rival's tags. This will really T him off. Tagger's Tag Get your tag on your opponent's back before they tag you.